I have an idea for a story.  Here is the title:  Lessons learned from my father: a penny for a piece of wood, a firm handshake, and why you shouldn't take advantage of the LL Bean lifetime guarantee.  

Peace from Kitty.

I'm sitting here on a Tuesday afternoon in September, enjoying a glass of white wine on my porch, watching the goldfinches timidly approach the thistle seed feeder.  There are 7 or 8 kids down the street who have made a slide out of cardboard boxes in someone's front yard and are screaming with delight as they slide down the slight slope into the street.  Overhead, a V of geese honk by and the temperature starts to drop in the late evening.  There are, still, a few last August crickets softly signing in the tall grasses on our street--they soon will fall silent with the cold.

Last night Kitty brought Aaron another bird.  This time, Aaron was appreciative and full of praise for the kill (the first time, Kitty was met with wild and unexpected shock--he was thrown into the bedroom until the bird was set free).  Kitty is growing up and thankfully, his instincts are still sharp.  I look forward to the day we can let him out, into a field, where he can roam and hunt mice in the damp places we, as tall people, can never visit. 

 I grew up with cats, on the coast of Maine.  We lived next to a field.  The cats came; the cats went.  I didn't pay much notice to them--my interest was with our dogs.  The dogs barked and loved and doted and waited.  The cats did not do this.  Bringing this into my adulthood meant I "wasn't a cat person," but when you live in a city, more life brought into an apartment is a good thing.  I'm looking at Kitty now, he is licking his paws, and now his tail.  At night, he crawls in between the two of us and starts licking our arms and fingers--a sign of love.  He will enjoy the warmth of our bed in winter, as his nose has been getting cold with the sudden change in night air.  

The kids down the street are loosing interest in their cardboard sleds.  Dinner for them is on the table, getting cold--mothers are calling now.  I must start thinking about dinner, too.  

  

After driving around, biking around, potting plants, drinking coffee, brushing kitty, talking to mom, remembering old friends who aren't with us anymore, crying briefly, laughing wildly; I sit here and drink a glass of wine.  Before all of this, I listened to an episode of "Speaking of Faith," on Minnesota Public Radio.  Let me just say that I really can't listen to Krista Tippett for too long, I mean only like a few minutes, but so I was listening to this episode only because it came after "Car Talk," and I wasn't finished cleaning the kitchen.  She was interviewing a pagan scholar and environmentalist.  The topic was our collective homesickness for nature, because of modern life and how this collective homesickness is actually related to our roots in paganism, or maybe they weren't really saying that but I think they were.  Anyhow, I wanted to call in and say it wasn't because we missed our pagan roots, it's because there are people like me living in places like Minneapolis and we miss our birth place of Maine every second of every day.  I mean, I'm from Maine, dammit!  Sometimes I want to scream it!  Kitty hasn't even had a place like Maine in his imagination yet.  How sad is that?  He doesn't even know how spectacular it is.  I really am doing okay.  In the middle of the country.  They have sweet corn at the grocery store already, so that's cool. 

I heard Aaron shuffle into the kitchen; the water was boiling.  

"You okay in there?"  I was in the bath staring at the ceiling. 

"Stuck in a scrap book, " I return. 

"Hold on - I'll be right there."  I hear him fill up another put of water, then the click, click, click of the gas burner.  We like our baths hot.

I get stuck from time to time in this pile of photographs in my mind.  A picture of our boat, The Polar Bear, is brought to the surface.  I remember the deck was white and chalky under my jelly sandals.  Quickly the pictures shuffle and I see the low spot in the backyard; the part of the yard you couldn't ride the mower through or you'd get stuck.  

I'm new at this blog thing, so my entries will be all over the place.  Mostly I think of this place as a slightly more public journal.  My intent for this blog is to get me closer to submitting a small piece of writing out there in the world.  

I can't promise exciting entries.  I take a lot of baths, go on walks & runs, drink wine, look at birds, draw birds, etc.  It's a Friday night, it snowed all day, I just took a bath, and here I am writing.   

As I lie here on my bed, after soaking too long in a hot bath, under the hum of an electric ceiling fan, I think of my mother.  The window on the side of the bed is cracked open and the late winter air reveals the steam rising from my red skin.  I remember seeing my mother through a cracked door; lying on my parents’ bed naked, eyes closed, her skin red and steaming.  Her wet foot prints on the wood floor, pools of the setting sun’s light.  The silence she made deepen with her breathing.  The trees outside putting on their black silhouettes like gloves.  The end of another day.  The fleeting transition from day to night that we wish would last longer.  I remember the first time I saw her - it scared me.  Now thinking of her, knowing what I do know about time, love, memories; I understand.